The present invention relates to a printing system that is installed in, for example, a store in a state in which it is ready to be used by a plurality of users and that includes an output apparatus constituted by a personal computer or the like and a printing apparatus constituted by a digital copier or the like, as well as to a printing method performed in such a printing system, and a printing apparatus and an output apparatus that are included in the printing system.
A printing apparatus such as a digital copier may be installed in a store in a state in which it is ready to be used by a plurality of users. This printing apparatus outputs a printing medium that has been subjected to printing based on print data, not only for customers of the store, but also for a store manager or a store clerk.
When the store manager or the store clerk uses the printing apparatus installed in the store, there may be cases where the print data should not be disclosed to the public. In such cases, it is required that no customer is present near the printing apparatus. On the other hand, when the customers of the store use the printing apparatus, a plurality of the customers may request output of a single piece of information, so that it is necessary that the same print data can be repeatedly subjected to printing.
Therefore, as disclosed in JP S62-003322A, there are some conventional printing apparatuses that perform so-called “hold processing” by which print data that has been input from an external output apparatus is held in a storage portion together with unique authentication information, without being subjected to printing, and when the authentication information is input, the print data corresponding to the input authentication information is read from the storage portion and printed on a printing medium.
In addition, the print data to be provided to the customers of the store may include paid-for print data. In this case, the printing apparatus stores, in the storage portion, the amount to be paid for the print data as additional information, together with the authentication information and the print data, and waits for input of the authentication information and completion of billing before reading the corresponding print data from the storage portion.
In general, for print data that is subjected to the hold processing and thus is printed on a printing medium after input of the authentication information, the optimum holding state varies depending on the type of the print data.
However, none of the conventional printing apparatuses have performed the hold processing in a manner that allows the print data to be held in different states depending on the type of the print data.
For example, print data that is to be provided to a specific user (the store manager or the store clerk) often needs to be deleted from the storage portion after it has been printed on a printing medium, whereas print data that is to be provided to a non-specific user (the customer of the store) needs to be stored in the storage portion even after it has been printed on a printing medium. Furthermore, print data that is to be provided to a non-specific user may need to be revised with respect to its content or its additional information after it has been once stored in the storage portion.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing system, a printing method, a printing apparatus and an output apparatus that are capable of holding various print data in an optimum state in accordance with the types of the print data.